While (((They))) Were Yet Sinners

I was having coffee with an older friend, a well-known Bible teacher for many years, when he surprised me by disclosing that he does not invest a great deal of time in the study of prophecy. Like me, he’s disinclined to do a lot of speculating, and uses his opportunities for platform ministry to exposit areas of scripture about which he can be most confident before the Lord concerning the interpretations he is sharing.

That’s a prudent stewardship of his study time for which he is to be commended. There are times when taking the wrong eschatological position can put you in a very awkward place.

An Absence of Eschatological Answers

Last Tuesday’s post on Christian Nationalism drew more eyeballs than usual, probably because the issue is most controversial among the Reformed. Older Postmillennialists are agitated to find their youngsters in an uproar about (((those people))), and don’t know what to tell them.

Oh, they can certainly lecture their young men to stop noticing Jews are disproportionately involved in woke Hollywood propaganda or the American porn industry, but their eschatology gives them no way to explain why they should cut Israel any slack for Gaza or other controversial political moves. Few among the old guard would be willing to give Putin the same benefit of the doubt over how he deals with hostile nations on his own border, and the inconsistency is embarrassingly obvious to the next generation of the faithful.

Being men and women of the Bible, the older Reformed folks know at some level that Israel is just different than other nations, but they cannot say how without undermining their supersessionist theology. After all, if the Church really is Israel, and all its Old Testament promises to be realized spiritually in our present age through the discipling of the nations, why would we treat Jews any differently from Gentiles when they misbehave?

Insults That Don’t Stick

Bereft of eschatological answers for CN-ers preoccupied with Israel at war against the world, the older Postmills can only keep endlessly repeating the bromide that racism is a bad look for Christians. Unfortunately, the political left has thrown that accusation at everyone on the political right for so long, expanding the definition of racism so far beyond anything remotely reasonable, that no young man takes the epithet “Racist!” seriously anymore, and few are terribly concerned even when you upgrade to “Antisemite!” It’s now a badge of honor among our youth to prefer the company of their own kind in a world where every tribe, ethnic group and subdivision of the human race is expected to put its own interests first except the Anglo-Saxon majority in the West. Furthermore, the Nationalists know significant numbers of older brothers in Christ in their own denominations feel the same way but are just afraid to say it in case they get called nasty names.

What’s an older Christian to do when that happens? Apparently, the answer is to resort to mockery, implicitly comparing young Christian men to Haman and his hateful Amalekite brethren. Let me just say this is not a winning strategy, as can be readily seen when two days later a writer must spend twice as long defending what he’s written as he did writing it.

A Better Answer

If the less Jew-friendly observations of Christian Nationalists ever become an issue with young dispensationalists, I have a much better answer for them than anything the older Reformers are currently offering. Instead of pretending not to notice what the young men are noticing, I can acknowledge and affirm their concerns. I can actually agree and amplify in some instances because I’ve looked further into the issue than many of them.

I don’t have to pretend The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 didn’t happen, significantly altering the ethnic demographics of the US forever, or that a Jew wasn’t the prime mover behind it, acting on behalf of his fellow Jews at the expense of his fellow Americans. I don’t have to pretend the words “Judeo-Christian” make sense in some weird way that nobody in the media ever uses them. I don’t have to pretend the reason there are so many Jews in the US with political clout is because they have higher IQs than those of us descended from the Anglosphere. (To call this position scientifically controversial is an understatement.) I don’t have to pretend Jews in Joe Biden’s cabinet weren’t overly-represented in promoting the losing war in Ukraine or that their brethren in prior administrations didn’t encourage the US into many foreign entanglements it would have been far better steering clear of, or that if they were, it was just a coincidence.

I never have to tell them, “Don’t (((notice)))”, because the Bible confirms what they are observing and accounts for it. We should not be afraid to say so, as long as we are willing to tell the rest of the story honestly. So I can point CN-ers to the apostle Paul. Along with him, I can simply say of Israel, “As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

Israel is Different

That’s what the Bible teaches about Israel. They ARE different. We don’t have to put them on a pedestal. We don’t have to pretend a synagogue of Satan is anything but exactly what scripture calls it when the secular or religious leadership of Israel takes a stand against Jesus Christ. We don’t have to defend the indefensible on contrived moral grounds or pretend that Palestine belongs to the Jews for any reason more complicated than that everyone has to live somewhere, and they are currently resident there and clearly able to defend it. Conquest, occupation, immigration and/or resettlement are readily accepted explanations for the existence of virtually every ethnic enclave in the world with the solitary exception of Palestine. We don’t need to resort to “God gave it them” as justification for Zionism when it’s apparent from scripture to anyone who can read that the Lord also took it away … and more than once.

However, what we must do is recognize that God is going to do something spectacular with Israel in the times of the end, whenever those may come. In order for him to do as he has promised, that much-maligned nation must still be around as a distinct people when the time for Christ’s return comes, and that people must be living in Jerusalem, as Zechariah says, not once, but nine times in nine verses. Therefore, anyone who promotes any strategy that makes the extermination of Jews easier in the present day, or encourages others to do so, is setting himself in opposition to the plans and purposes of God.

Time for a Rethink

And that is why a young, enthusiastic subset of Christian Nationalists needs to rethink the received wisdom of its peers with respect to Israel. Possibly it means they need to rethink their eschatology first.

It’s not sentimental or even funny and clever, but it seems to me that’s a much better answer, and one a young Christian can get his head around. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And while (((they))) were yet sinners, Christ died for them too.